


Timeless, Darling

by UselessLesbianLaughter



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Saving Storybrooke Again, Time Travel, or - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 19:59:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15736356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UselessLesbianLaughter/pseuds/UselessLesbianLaughter
Summary: On a gorgeous autumn morning, Storybrooke's sheriff's office receives a note announcing the town's doom before at sundown. Emma seeks Regina's help.Unable to find a solution, they accept their impending grim fate. Emma shows up unexpectedly on Regina's balcony, passionate love is made, epiphanies are had. Before the end of their world, Emma and Regina manage to travel in time, earning a chance to save the town, everyone they love and themselves.TW: there will be mentions and depictions of eating disorders along the line.





	Timeless, Darling

**Author's Note:**

> If updates are slow, I'm sorry. I'm trying. I started this fic a while ago and have struggled with writing chronologically, pun not intended.

 It was a sweet autumn morning, the sweetest of the year. Leaves decorated Regina’s front porch and as she sipped coffee, with milk, from the mug Henry had made her the year he started school, she dreaded the thought of having to rake up all those colorful leaves but of course her garden could never be anything but perfect. Still, they were such a beautiful sight, perhaps she’d just keep them for one more day.

 An urgent knock on the door snapped her out of her thoughts. She knew who it was immediately, if only because there was no one else in this entire town who would dare to knock on her door this early.

 “Miss Swan,” she said, opening the door with a half-smirk.

 “Regina,” Emma greeted, getting lost in the woman’s eyes for a moment though perhaps that was just Regina’s wishful imagination, “look, I have to make this quick. We’ve got a problem and you’re not gonna like it.”

 “I assumed that when you said it was a problem,” Regina interrupted.

 “There’s no time for this, Regina. If we don’t do something now, well, there will be no one left to do anything. Or not us, at least. Tomorrow won’t come, for the whole town.”

 “What, is someone trying to kill us _again_?”

 “Not just kill. Erase. We’ll disappear by the next sundown.” For two long seconds, they simply stared at each other, as one stares at a fire, unable to tear their eyes from each other. “Unless we do something, that is.”

 “And what is that you propose that we do? Could you at least first tell me who the hell is after us this time?”

 “Of course. But get in the car first, I’ll tell you everything I know on the ride to the station. We need you there.” Emma’s voice was urgent and her pupils were far smaller than usual. Something about her just screamed off. It was less of an issue about not being able to put her finger on just what was wrong for Regina, much rather an issue of seeing what wasn’t wrong. Emma had been anxiously clawing at her arms ever since she got to her doorstep, Regina suspected even longer. Of course, Emma was not among the masters of keeping her composure but Regina had never seen her that distressed before and quite frankly, it was setting off a lot of alarm bells in her head.

 Perhaps that was the reason why she agreed to follow the woman without much thought. The engine revved but Emma didn’t say a word until they were on the open road.

 “We don’t know much. David got to work before me today-”

 “Unsurprisingly, even the idiots have a better comprehension of time and deadlines than you do,” Regina couldn’t help but playfully scoff.

 “Not the time! Save the insults for later,” Emma said, pausing to consider her words, “if there is a later.” She sighed. “Either way, he always gets to work before me. Well, this morning he found a lovely note- addressed to me.”

 “What did it say?” Regina inquired.

 “Oh, nothing much. Just that we, the citizens of Storybrooke, were all going to dissipate into nothingness before the sun could go down, something like that. You can read it as many times as you like when we get there, stationery’s excessively fancy for a serial killer. Whoever wrote it, I don’t think he had the most perfect grasp of today’s technology. No fingerprints but it is handwritten plus we might be able to collect some DNA.”

 “No way. DNA tests take far too long; we’ll be half-way to oblivion before we get the results,” Regina said, famous as she was for her never-ending positivity.

 “Yeah, so there’s that. We searched the precinct but there was nothing else,” Emma replied.

 “Could be someone’s simply messing with you. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had enemies galore,” Regina smirked.

 “No, too specific. And for your information, I do but not for the reasons you think. Besides, no one who has it out for me has any idea that Storybrooke even exists.”

 “Well, the letter was addressed to you. Did you search your place yet?”

 “Actually, that’s where we’re going right now. David just texted me, he’ll be there with the note in five.”

 “First off, you should _not_ be texting and driving. Think of the example you’re setting for Henry. Second, why do you need me anyway? Aren’t you the sheriff? This isn’t my jurisdiction, you should know that,” Regina said, tension clear in her voice.

 “Don’t be ridiculous, you know this is more than just law enforcement. I want you to think if there’s anyone who still wants to get back at you so bad they’d wipe out a whole town and why they’d address the letter to me, not you,” Emma said.

 “There’s plenty of people that want me dead, Emma, and you know more than half of them wouldn’t mind wiping out a whole town with me if that’s what it took. But most of them also lack the strength to pull off such a stunt. It’s nearly impossible to erase one person, let alone a whole town. And if I know my enemies, which you can trust me to do, none of them would go through the effort of giving anyone a warning, especially you.”

 “Hey!”

 “That wasn’t an insult. If anything you should take it as a compliment,” Regina scoffed.

 The car made a sudden right turn and then pulled to a halt.

 “We’re here,” Emma proclaimed without much excitement to her voice.

 “Since when do you live here?” Regina did her best to conceal her confusion.

 “I moved in a week ago. Needed some space to myself,” Emma reluctantly admitted. She’d been hoping to keep this change of residency to herself and her parents, the only people that had to know for now.

 “How can you even afford this?” Regina asked.

 Truly, the house was strangely big and in extremely decent order, out of character for Emma. It wouldn’t have been unfair for Regina to find it suspicious in more ways than one yet, despite herself, she was for once giving Emma the benefit of the doubt.

 “The last owner died in my arms last week. Said he wanted me to have it,” Emma said with the utmost casualness, “and it’s not like property values are up in Storybrooke, what with the whole magic town thing.”

 “What the hell have you been up to that you haven’t told me about?” Regina stopped in her footsteps and stared at Emma with wide accusatory eyes.

 “Standard sheriff work,” Emma mumbled, knowing a plain answer like that wouldn’t satisfy.

 “Are you entirely sure of that?” Regina asked, voice tinted with poison.

 “He was… a regular. Would sometimes call the sheriff’s office just because he had no one to talk to. A lonely old man in a big house. When I’m not off trying to defeat _another_ magical villain the sheriff’s office is actually pretty calm, we have spare time. I’d stay to talk sometimes, help him around the house. Happy?” Emma really didn’t have time to waste on bicker so she supposed an honest straight-forward answer would be her best bet and perhaps they could move on to the more important matter at hand. It seemed her wish was fulfilled as Regina nodded, not even questioning who the man used to be before the curse.

“Emma. Thank god you’re here,” David proclaimed as soon as he spotted her.

 “Did you find anything new? Some more stationery?”

 “Actually, we did. Are you sure you only moved here last week? When did you last check your mailbox?”

 “Yesterday, why?” Emma arched an eyebrow, “it was empty.”

 “Well, it wasn’t empty today,” his voice was grim as he handed her a stack of letters, all with entirely different handwriting on them. Emma frowned, Regina’s eyes rolled to the back of her head.

 “Delightful. Sheriff Swan, would you be so kind as to show us inside? If I’m going to be reading death threats and whatnot I’d like to do that somewhere other than the freezing cold,” Regina intersected.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments mean the world to me. I breathe them. I print them out and eat them. They contain all the viable nutrients I require to live as no other food on the planet does. I regularly have to inject some feedback into my bloodstream, otherwise, I die.
> 
> Please, do please the feedback vampire. Sustain me so I can write more chapters. Leave feedback. Lots of love.


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